AT "Rawduck", a restaurant in London's trendy Hackney neighbourhood, clients crowd around communal tables under dim lights, inspecting a menu of delights such as charred purple sprouting broccoli, shaved yellow courgette and goat's curd. Along with food, the venue offers classes in pickling vegetables and making kombucha (a Japanese fermented tea). The greatest emphasis is on the wine list, all of it billed as "natural" or organic. But on this front, though the venue strives for eccentricity, it is part of a much larger trend.
The craze for "natural" wine started in France in the 1990s, recalls Bertrand Celce, a wine blogger. A small group of bacchanalians started opening offbeat organic wine bars across Paris. Now the city boasts hundreds, with many others elsewhere in France. Since the mid-2000s they have spread across Europe and to parts of America. "Raw", a London-based wine fair which started in 2012, has now opened in Berlin, Vienna and New York; this November, it will have its first show in Los Angeles. Well-heeled restaurants such as Claridge's in London have also started to stock...
The Economist: Europe
